With daughters 10, 12, and 14 I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how to help them build relationships with both genders while preparing for dating. In particular, I have a lovely 14-year-old daughter who is starting to notice boys, and they are starting to notice her too. You might even say there is a crush or two developing.
I don’t want to put the kibosh on these feelings. I remember having them myself and I think they were not only great learning experiences but also a time to just have fun and not worry about the more serious dating stuff. On the other hand, we do have family and church guidelines and we definitely want to encourage our children to stay within those bounds as well.
So, I am asking for your thoughts. If you’ve passed this stage with some of your children, how did you navigate it? If your children are younger, is there anything you are doing now to prepare them for the “in between” time (I would call it ‘tween but they really are teens, just not dating teens yet). [click to continue…]
This post brought to you by Sears. All opinions are 100% mine.
One of first lessons learned in building a custom home is to shop online whenever possible. A home has tens of thousands of working parts and running around from home store to deparment store to specialty store trying to gather them all is mind-numbingly futile.
How many times do you have the perfect item in mind, only to find the brand, model, finish, or color you want —no need — is not in stock?
Internet shopping to the rescue. In most cases you order it, they locate it, they ship it to your home or building site. Done. [click to continue…]
This post brought to you by Comfort and Harmony. All opinions are 100% mine.
Now that my kids are older, I feel like the wise old sage mom. OK, old mom, but sometimes I pose as a wise sage. Truthfully, there is nothing like getting older to make you realize how many really dumb things you did as a parent mdash; generally whilst feeling so knowledgable — but I’m grateful my kids survived me. Mostly.
Today’s new parent face an astouding array of choices. Wandering the aisles of Babies R Us is enough to send any prespective parent over the edge — and that’s not even considering the checking account.
I never much got into the baby gadget thing. First, because we had our first two children while still in college and, second, because I sincerely didn#39;t want one more thing to take care of, clean around, and to fill up my living space. I always purchased items very judisciously and often found items that could serve multiple purposes.
Still, there were a few things I would never have done without: [click to continue…]
This post brought to you by Miracle-Gro. All opinions are 100% mine.
There’s an old Primary song you may have heard — probably depending on the culture where you live. It starts out, “The prophet said to plant a garden, so that’s what we’ll do…”
Now that’s a really nice sentiment, but it’s easier said than done.
Within a year of moving from Utah Valley to Boca Raton, Florida, right after college graduation, we were finally in a position to buy our first home. No more renting. No more white walls. No more communal property. Instead, we would have our own roof, our own walls, and our own yard.
The Tale of Two Mothers Days The Snarky Mother’s Day How can it be Mothers Day when woken up at 6am or earlier Children begging you to eat breakfast in bed even when it is the worst thing in the world Forced to eat a cold breakfast that’s been repeatedly touched Copious amounts of handmade [...]
This post brought to you by Scotts Miracle-Gro. All opinions are 100% mine. With the new religion of ecological awareness come many offshoots. In the gardening world the buzzword sustainable gardening. Indeed, I don’t know what “non-sustainable gardening” would look like. In fact, just look at this convoluted explanation in Wiki: Sustainable gardening (which is [...]
I despise fundraising. Absolutely positively loathe it. From the magazine sales events at schools to the branches of a tree somehow worth ridiculous amounts of money simply because somebody made them into a circle and threw a couple bows or berries in the mix. I would rather someone bring a bucket door to door and [...]
I had my first experience of dread during an interview for a new calling at church. (Which we know that all good LDS should never have I had a split second waver of “Are you serious?” I’ve been a early morning seminary teacher , a bishop’s wife at 25, in a Relief Society presidency (while husband [...]
At the heart of it we are all feminists. I highly doubt any would choose to return to the days without voting privileges and the like. The nuances of religious feminism are complex. We have questions. We have concerns. It is quite often isolating to feel different, or be different, or think differently than the [...]
Have you ever: not been in on the joke? been picked last for the team? been looked over for an invitation to an event that many around you were invited to? felt like you just didn’t belong? Many, probably most, of us go through things like this in our youth. We are familiar with that [...]
Apologies ahead of time Alison if my words have mischaracterized anything you meant The pondering your response set in motion was invaluable to me, thank you. In a recent discussion Alison’s response to a statement of mine got me thinking. It really got me thinking. Is it possible to be equally proud of the child who [...]
I was visually accosted by a ginormous television screen. I mean seriously large. No matter what I did I could not get away from the power of the thing. I would have needed serious blinders, and quite possibly a blindfold, to avoid the images and messages protruding towards me and worming their way into my [...]
There has been a lot of talk recently about women’s issues in the church. I personally have spent much time in thought and prayer about these issues, trying to find where exactly I fall on the continuum. It seems that every time women become vocal about an issue in the church (wear pants to church [...]
My son had the opportunity to attend his first Temple trip with the youth recently. He was nervously anticipating this next step in his cultural indoctrination. Our branch has a chasm between he and the other youth as far as age, so he was not among “friends”. The long drive (90-120 min. traffic dependent) did [...]
Tomorrow begins the 2013 Spring General Conference. What are your traditions? Tips for getting the most out of conference? Any hopes/expectations for this conference? Here are mine: Traditions We always have a nice breakfast as a family both mornings of conference. We are on Eastern Time so conference doesn’t start until noon, giving us ample [...]
By Mike Jensen – Tuesday, January 22, 2013 – reprinted with permission Mormons have intrigued me ever since Mike Huckabee back in 2007 claimed that Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers. With the recent election over, I decided to check out Mormons a bit more. My hope in doing this was to explain [...]
of cultural pressure; let me ask this. Is accepting callings doctrine, or masterfully manipulative cultural pressure? A lady once shared with me that she had declined a calling to be PP due to the Lord revealing to her, through fasting and prayer, that she should not accept it. Horrible things were said, and still are, [...]
I recently read an obituary that contained an interesting tidbit. It talked about how this woman was called to serve as a young women’s president at the age of 75 and how this service blessed her life and those youth in her ward. It caused me to think back to another older sister who served [...]
It’s barely Easter morning. The authors here at Mormon Momma want to wish all of you a wonderful day, celebrating the atonement and resurrection of our Savior. Please share your Easter thoughts and/or traditions in this thread if you care to. We’d love to hear from you!
There is nothing I enjoy more than streams filled with icy cold water born from melting snow. The stagnant stream bed is revived and life springs forth almost instantaneously. I can smell the coldness of the water and hear the gentle smoothing of the rocks as the water races to its destiny. It gives me [...]
One of first lessons learned in building a custom home is to shop online whenever possible. A home has tens of thousands of working parts and running around from home store to deparment store to specialty store trying to gather them all is mind-numbingly futile.
